Help:Talk Page
What is it? It can be accessed by clicking "Discussion" at the top of all articles. It is used to discuss edits, discuss relevance of articles, and more. Main namespace talk Talk pages in this namespace should be kept to discussing edits to the page. DO NOT USE THEM FOR DISCUSSION OPINIONS! Do that in the main MBG forum. User namespace talk User talk pages are used for discussing with the user. This means saying how to read the rules, how do you do that, etc. Rules #Archives are also useful. If you have many posts on your talk page, put them in a separate subpage of your userpage (eg or something like that). Afterward, copy all the old posts to the page, and put a note on the top of your active one. Formatting posts To start a new topic Press the "Leave Message" link at the top of the page. It will ask you for a thread title and a post. Do those, and be sure to put ~~~~ at the end. To reply Press edit at the top of the page. Find the post you want to reply to. Underneath the post, put a colon (:) if it is the first reply, or one more colon if not the first post. Still sign using ~~~~. Talk post content *'Avoid excessive markup': It undermines a reasoned argument with the appearance of force through Italic text, Bolded text, and especially CAPITAL LETTERS, which are considered SHOUTING, and RANTING!!!!! Italics, however, can be usefully employed for a key word, to distinguish quoted text from new text and, of course, book titles, etc. *'Keep the layout clear': Keep the talk page attractively and clearly laid out. Avoid repetition, muddled writing, and unnecessary digressions. *'Read the archives': Many article talk pages contain links to archives, which contain earlier discussions. If you are a new editor to an article, be sure to read them, as they often deal with common content disputes and resolutions to them. You may well find your questions and/or objections have already been answered. *'How to provide an opinion:' Some pages invite you to provide an opinion on a topic. Many people add their opinion as a bullet (*) underneath the relevant topic and bold () a brief one- or two-word summary of that opinion. This practice is optional (and somewhat controversial). Your opinion will typically carry more weight depending on the quality of the rationale you provide for making it. Take your time considering a good rationale, based on how the project operates. Make sure to sign your post (~~~~), as described above. *'''Centralized discussion: Avoid posting the same thread in multiple forums. This fragments discussion of the idea, creating discussions in separate places with no interchange of ideas. This is rarely desirable, and leads to redundant effort where an idea that has already been adequately addressed has to be considered all over again. Instead, solicit discussion in only one location, either an existing talk page or a new project page, and if needed advertise that in other locations using a link. See also: meatball:ForestFire *:If you find a fragmented discussion, it may be desirable to move all posts to one of the locations, removing them from the other locations and adding a link. *'Be welcoming to newcomers:' People new to the wiki may be unfamiliar with policy and conventions.